Thoughts on a Near Hit-and-Run Incident Outside a Boston Synagogue

 

(Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe in Brighton, MA)

A most disturbing incident here in the Boston neighborhood of Brighton via Boston.com.

A driver sped up and yelled an antisemitic slur at a couple crossing the street to attend Shabbat services Friday evening at an Orthodox synagogue in Brighton, the rabbi there said. 

The newly married couple was walking across the closest crosswalk to Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe on Washington Street when a driver sped up and they had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit, said KTM Rabbi Daniel Aldrich, who spoke directly with the couple.

“He yelled antisemitic epithets as he drove by and then the very shaken couple came into our synagogue, and we immediately called the police,” Aldrich said. 

A spokesperson for the Boston Police Department said they received a report of an incident that occurred in the Brighton community at 101 Washington St. around 7:30 p.m Friday. The Civil Rights Unit is investigating whether there are any bias indicators involved in the incident, and no arrest has been made at this time, the spokesperson said. 

I would suggest that bias indicators are self-evident when someone attempts to use their vehicle as a weapon while yelling anti-Semitic slurs at Jewish people.

What worries me is that no arrest has been made at this time. This could mean a couple of things. It could mean that authorities have no idea who committed this act. It could also mean that authorities do have a possible suspect but have seen fit not to pursue the matter. 

I cannot help but think that this driver may have done something like this before and his victims were too afraid to reach out for help perhaps because they have come to believe that authorities do not care about Jews.

In which case, I also cannot help but think that as long as this driver remains at large that he will try something like this again and when he does there will be bloodshed.

Perhaps he won't use his car. It is quite possible that he might walk into a synagogue and disrupt services just like what happened at Central Synagogue in NYC right around the same time at this attempted hit-and-run incident.

Or perhaps he will use his car to storm a synagogue and bring other weaponry just as the perpetrator did at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan last March. Should this come to pass then Abdul El-Sayed will have another opportunity to claim that "hurt people hurt people" and once make excuses for those who commit violence against Jews. 

Even if the man responsible for this act does not commit any further acts there will be someone else who will be more than happy to commit violence against Jews for being Jews. And the more this happens then the more violence against Jews is tolerated and eventually accepted as appropriate behavior in polite society.